Two weeks after the last developer versions, Apple is now upping the ante and inviting another round of beta. The third round is now available, but for now only for members of the developer program. Apple should once again provide fine-tuning and detailed improvements with the updated builds, after numerous adjustments were already found in the second beta. It is not expected that there will be a change to weekly cycles any time soon; for major releases this usually only happens with the sixth betas. Soon public beta
According to Apple, the public testing program will begin in July. If you look back at the past few years, this would have been expected even without the announcement. Normally, Apple always opened the public beta after the third or fourth developer version at the latest – i.e. at a time when the major errors from the original WWDC release have already been fixed. It can therefore be assumed that the group of testers will soon be expanded, either in a few days or shortly after the fourth beta in two weeks.
What’s new in the third beta
We will provide the specific innovations of the third beta in this news as soon as the first discoveries are made. It can be assumed that some areas around Apple Intelligence and Siri AI will once again see improvements – in addition to bug fixes, optimizations and smaller functional innovations.
- macOS: New wallpapers with Golden Gate Bridge
- iOS & macOS: Request permission when Apple Intelligence accesses Google servers
- watchOS: Siri AI and Siri app now included
- Siri: “Indexing” with progress bar is now called “Optimize”
- Liquid Glass: Light effects on icons slightly weakened
The current beta versions
It will take around two to two and a half months until the updates with version number 27 are generally released, as Apple is expected to continue to adhere to the usual schedule. For many years, Apple has chosen September for this, but sometimes major updates only appeared in October. The build numbers of the first developer versions ended in “q”, in the previous, second beta they were already “g” and “h”, now we are back to “h” to “k”. As is well known, Apple uses the letters to document how close the builds are to the planned state of market readiness.
| system | Build number | Published |
| macOS 27 Beta 3 | 26A5378j | July 6, 2026 |
| iOS 27 Beta 3 | 24A5380h | July 6, 2026 |
| iPadOS 27 Beta 3 | 24A5380h | July 6, 2026 |
| watchOS 27 Beta 3 | 24R5315i | July 6, 2026 |
| tvOS 27 Beta 3 | 24J5315i | July 6, 2026 |
| visionOS 27 Beta 3 | 24M5316k | July 6, 2026 |
